Chronologically after the previous post.

“Once you have returned from the Five Peaks, you will not see mountains, once you have returned from Mount Kou, you will no longer see the Five Peaks.”

In Saiunkoku, there are five famous mountains. Once you have climbed them, you will lose interest in seeing other mountains. Bu once you have climbed Mount Kou, even those five peaks will no longer be of interest to you—such is said of the land’s most famed eminence.

It was a mysterious, secluded spot rivaling Ran Province’s Nine Colors Cove: Kou Province’s Mount Kou.

There were deep valleys, endless clouds and mist, boiling hot springs, and “cloud seas” covering the many peaks. Upon the soaring crags, there were about in total sixty thousand stone steps naturally carved. They were nearly at right angles.

“Though they say that no one has counted them all, counting the mechanical steps, there must be around a hundred thousand of them.”

While Shouka chatted on about this, he lightly bounded up the steps, and triggered one after another the mechanisms of the artificial ones. At Mount Kou, there were four famed astounding sights. The marvelous rocks, the strange pine trees, the cloud seas, and the hot springs. Within those mists so beautiful they look as if they have been cut out from a landscape painting, if someone undid the various hidden devices placed there by the Ki clan, they would enter the residence of Hourin’s clan, which, it was said, no one had ever succeeded in finding.

“Certainly, if the “Hourin” clan were living in secret, Mount Kou would suit them perfectly. What an astounding mental battle. All of these cruel traps. Just like our wicked clan of strategists. Hey, Reishin, hurry up, don’t be so slow! If we don’t return soon, Kurou will really take responsibility and kill himself. He’s dutiful, so he’s taking this so hard that he might take out a dagger sometime and cut off his head. He’s to be pitied, for having such incompetent elder brothers. You’re younger than I am, so walk faster.”
While Reishin’s shoulders were heaving as he breathed in and out, he desperately followed his elder brother. His body was dripping with sweat. His knees were also creaking. Certainly, Reishin would normally be said to be in shape, but after having walked for three days and nights, anyone would definitely be beginning to die.
“….Young….!!! Unlike you, elder brother, I am only normally trained.”
As if mocking Reishin, in a nearby pine tree the master of Kou mountain, a monkey, was leaping about. Just as the master of Nine Colors Cove were pandas, the ones of Mount Kou were monkeys. As usual, thoughts of irritation raced through Reishin’s head. It was because of these monkeys that those blasted Ran triplets had chortled that he was “the general of monkey mountain.” If they had been pandas, Shuurei definitely would have happily come here to visit. Why monkeys?
“Scram, monkey!”
However the monkey continued to hang around Reishin, as if it were making fun of him. Shouka laughed cheerfully. He wasn’t even breathing faster. Reishin was completely sure that his elder brother was not a human being. It was impossible, with that kind of bottomless strength. He thought that he even looked twenty years younger.
“It seems to like you, Reishin. That’s great. It’s probably a sign that you’re of the direct line of the Kou clan.”
“I don’t want them to like me! Ah! How dare that one ride on your shoulder!”
“Aren’t they cute? Their fur is fluffy.”
“I, your younger brother, am way cuter than a monkey!”
“Ah, yes, yes. You and the monkey are equally cute.”
Reishin was enraged. If he was about as cute as a monkey, did that make him cute or not cute at all? However before he could burst out angrily, Shouka glared at him.
“If you have enough energy to shout, then climb up some more stairs. [ambiguous] [I think after this he says something like 'it would be you who said to go and lodge a protest with Hourin. Someone would like to know, probably." Guh, it just doesn't make sense. I think I'll ask about this later. ]
“Reishin, here.”
His brother threw something at him. He reflexively reached out to catch it. It was a pear. At Mount Kou, there were many pear trees
“Eat it. Rehydrate yourself well.”
Reishin wiped the pear with his sleeve, and ate it.
In Kou Province, the pear blossoms bloom in the spring along with the plum blossoms. Their petals are pure white.
The flowers of the plum range from white to pink, but the pear’s flowers are only pure white, someone had said to him.
(…………? Who was it?)
It couldn’t have been his elder brother.
When he tried to recall, a rain of pure white petals surged in his brain. The pure white petals, like snow, fell one after the other.
Who could it have been?
There had been a boy who should not have been there, in the forbidden garden where the snow white petals had been falling.
For a second, he had begun to remember something. There was then a loud thump. Before his eyes was a gigantic boulder, as high as the eye could see, and what had made the sound was the side of it coming off. Within the darkness there was a mouth of a maze, like the entrance to hell. Shouka could only be entirely fed up. After three days and nights of having to walk up, now this? When he listened, there came the sound of bats or something like them flying around as they pleased.
“….There’s a wind. It looks like inside there’s a gigantic maze. Once you’re lost, there’s only death, eh. And it looks like there’s only one right path. Just as the rumors say, an uncommonly wicked clan. The most horrible”
Shouka turned to his brother, and held out his hand.
“Your night eyes probably aren’t very good. Hold my hand and let’s go. I’ll handle the mechanical things and evil traps that definitely have been set there. When you don’t know the time, or what direction we’re going in, ask me. I’ll leave solving the maze, and making a map of the entrance and exit to you. You can do it, right? Reishin.”
“Understood.”
Reishin looked up, as if taking in the entire crag, and casually nodded.
He didn’t like to be bothered with things, so Reishin hardly ever put into use his so-called “true genius.” However, if he felt like it, no maze, no matter how terrible or obstinate, would be able to confuse Reishin. Shouka, if he had time, would not be unable to escape it, but where Shouka would take ten days, Reishin was capable of breaking through in half a day. Shouka knew that Reishin had that kind of ability, comparable to Ryuuren’s. Shouka and Reishin, from the way their heads were made on, were quite different.

“Well, let’s go.”
Reishin was happy to be holding hands with his brother, as he hadn’t for decades, but a monkey had come along with them. Reishin, whose mood had become slightly better, struck the monkey on the head, and entered the final gate.

At the end of the path, where ninety-nine out of a hundred people would have taken it for a dead end and headed back, Shouka did as Reishin, that single exception, said, and searched for the last switch. Just as at the entrance, a boulder moved, and beyond that, a fairyland-like landscape unfolded. As far as the eye could see, there was a sea of clouds. Mountain peaks peered out of this sea. The setting sun lit up the clouds, which reflected colored light, like a rainbow.

It was a scene out of a dream.

—What they saw as they looked down from Mount Kou, was this landscape alone.

Everything else had been completely reduced to ruins. The fields had become wild, and it could be seen at a glance that no one had tended them for decades. The small houses dotting the landscape had also been turned into heaps of rubble.

Shouka was speechless, and could only stand there, frozen. ….. He had not heard of this.

“When did the Ki clan…. die out?”
The foremost of the clans serving the Kou clan. Known as a wicked clan of genius strategists, the legendary red guardians.
“When…What happened? Why wasn’t the Kou clan contacted? Reishin, let’s search the records.”
However, Reishin, for some reason, was even more dazed than Shouka.
“Elder brother…probably this place was destroyed over thirty years ago.”
“Over thirty years ago? …. Around when I left the Kou clan?”
“Yes…. around when Great-aunt Gyokukan suddenly passed away, and father officially became the head of the Kou clan.”
Kou Gyokukan, who though a woman, had ruled the Kou clan from the shadows, had been their father’s backer.
Around the time Gyokukan had died, Shouka had also disappeared from the Kou house.
“Back then…. the previous king was very wary of the Kou clan. No, more than the Kou clan, the previous king Senka thoroughly destroyed ‘powerful nobles.’”
Shouka was in shock.
“—-Are you saying that King Senka destroyed the Ki clan? That can’t be. I….”
Shouka swallowed the rest of what he was saying. At that time, Shouka had gone half as a hostage to the previous king, and exchange for the continuation of the Kou clan, become the ‘Black Wolf.’ This had shown that they had no intention of rebelling against Senka.
(—–No, that king could have done it.)
He was known as a tyrant of blood Even if he overlooked the Kou clan, it would be definitely unlike him to just let the Ki clan, otherwise known as the “crimson military strategists,” the foremost of the houses serving the Kou clan, alone. Known as the guardians of the Kou clan, they had saved it countless times from trouble. If he wished to completely take hold of the Kou clan, the existence of the Ki clan would definitely be an obstacle to him.
“….But, King Senka should not have known about this place—–No, right after Great-Aunt Gyoku-kan died?!”
“Yes, while Great-aunt Gyokukan would have rather died than reveal the location of the Ki clan, father might have done it. If someone had threatened him, saying the existence of the Kou clan was at stake, unless he revealed the location of the hidden village. Father was of the school of thought that ‘Hourin’ did not exist, you see.”
At that time, Shouka had generally been absent. Reishin had been totally indifferent to the affairs of the clan. Kurou had still been an infant.
“…This is such a small village, that King Senka alone could have easily crushed it.”
That was true. Shouka felt that everything had gone red in front of his eyes. Shouka knew well that King Senka had the strength of a demon or a god. No matter how intelligent the Ki clan was, in the face of that overwhelming force, defeat was certain.
“While the Kou clan knew nothing…..!”
“No, he came.”
“…..What?”
“…..He came. The current Hourin. To ask for help.”
Reishin, stunned, repeated this.
Yes, he had come. Not to his father. In that forbidden garden, where snow white petals fell like snow. That boy who had come to a place where only those of the direct line should have been allowed to enter.
“….They’re beautiful, the flowers of this plum tree. They go from light pink to white. As beautiful as a dream. The flowers of the pear are totally white, but the flowers of the plum are also very beautiful”
He had smiled, and made the courtesies due Reishin as the head of the clan, and knelt.
“Soon King Senka will come to destroy us. Somehow, help us. Next leader of the Kou clan.”
He had not come to Reishin’s father, who had sold them out.
He had come to see the heir apparent, this child of only six or seven. [ed note: Personally, I am confused as to whether they mean Yuushun or Reishin? I think it is probably, by age, Yuushun. I guess I should fix the grammar here. >_< The author needs to come out with an AGE CHART. She makes too big of a deal about minor age differences.]
He remembered. He now recalled it. At that time, how had Reishin replied to the boy? Reishin had been indifferent to anything. In his world, there was only his elder brother.
If he will destroy them, then let him do it. It doesn’t concern me. I don’t care either way.
Saying he didn’t care either way, he had turned him down.
–The boy’s face then.
He had smiled, gently, calmly, as if to say only that there was no helping it, and had left that place.
That had been—-
“……It’s Yuushun…..elder brother.”
“…..What did you say?”
There was no mistake. At that time, there had been nothing wrong with his leg. Even though he hadn’t been using a cane then, his face….
“….The current Hourin…..is Yuushun, elder brother”
The Ki clan had been destroyed. —–No, Reishin had abandoned them.
“I and King Senka…..destroyed Yuushun and Yuushun’s clan.”
He remembered Ryou Anju’s mockery.
From before I had thought that it was fairly impressive that you would associate with Yuushun without shame, but now the mystery is solved. It’s because you don’t know. I’m now instead impressed by the broadness of Yuushun’s mind, that he would befriend you without saying a thing.
The meaning of those words.
To Yuushun, the kin and the Kou clan, no Reishin, were his family’s mortal enemies.
One day, that king had burst like a storm into this place where they had been quietly living, and when they had gone to request help from their masters, they had been casually ignored. What in the world had he been thinking, while he had been with Reishin up till now? After Yuushun had become prime minister, Reishin had been dismissed, and the Kou clan had lost influence. What were those words Yuushun had repeated over and over again?
“….I have something to do, he said. ‘So, I will not quit being prime minister.’”
Shouka’s expression changed.
“….If that really is true, the Ki clan are a clan of rare villains. They’ll tell lies with a smile, fool others, and betray them. They distinguish themselves in plotting and scheming. More than anything, their intelligence and knowledge is the genuine article.”
The Kou clan’s Hourin had flown off from the clan. The Kou clan had let go first. He was speechless. But, if that bloody conquerer had destroyed the entire Ki clan, Yuushun alone had been left alive. Just as someone had saved Shiba Jin, there must have been someone who had saved Yuushun.
There had been someone at the side of the tyrant, who had one by one, saved the survivors of the nobility, and taken care of them.
“…..Ou Ki-dono?”
Yuushun had passed the Shi Province exam with the top score. Shi province was where Ou Ki had his estates, as he was part of one of the clans which served the Shi family. How had Yuushun’s origins been totally erased? Was that possible? With King Senka, if it came from Ou Ki, the explanation would stick.
“Reishin, after I return to the Kou house, I’m going to Kiyou. What are you going to do?”
“………….I.”
Reishin could say nothing more. His mind was in disorder, he had no idea what to think about. The world of Reishin, who had been indifferent to everything, was now beginning to collapse.
No matter how smart he was, that would not help when dealing with the human heart. That could not be fathomed by calculation. Unlike the maze, he could not leave easily. The only thing he could do was decide in which direction he wanted to go.
Shouka tapped Reishin’s cheek.
“—Think about it for yourself and come up with an answer. I can’t tell you the correct one. The only way is for you to come up with it yourself. That’s because you were the one who wanted to be with Yuushun, not me.”
He then took hold of Reishin’s arm.
“Anyway, let’s get back to Kurou’s. Alright? Remember why we came back.”
“Elder brother….”
“Sorry for taking this long. Thank you, Reishin. After this, I’ll take on everything. I will take the heavy reins of the Kou clan, and make everything right again. Hourin is no more. Even so, that’s okay. I must think things through myself, come to a conclusion, and start to walk. Just as everyone does. Return the seat of clan leader to me, Reishin. Once you do so, you will be free. Do as you please.”
Shouka flicked Reishin’s nose with a finger, and smiled.
–For he had returned to do this.

tags>>saiunkoku|translation